Week 13 · Ethnography Workshop

Week 13 Ethnography Workshop: Rites, Routines, and Bad Luck at a Season's End

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Every season, every school year, and every job has its ceremonies, and many people keep small routines for the moments that feel uncertain. This week you learned that a rite of passage moves a person from one social status to another through separation, transition, and incorporation; that liminality is the in-between state of the middle phase and communitas is the bond people form while they share it; that magic is ritual aimed at a result where outcomes are uncertain; and that witchcraft, as Evans-Pritchard described it among the Azande in the late 1920s, explained why a misfortune struck particular people at a particular moment. In this workshop you code an illustrative record of ten field-note entries from a youth soccer league's season-end gathering, count the codes, set two entries beside Trobriand fishing magic and one beside the Azande granary, and write two field notes of your own. Then you catch a chatbot ranking peoples, freezing them in a timeless present, or inventing a figure.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: At one season-end gathering, which acts move a person to a new status, which mark the passing of time, which aim at an uncertain outcome, and what can ten entries not tell you about anyone's beliefs?

Workshop data: An illustrative season-end field-note record of ten entries

Source: A record of ten two-column field-note entries from one morning at a youth soccer league's season-end gathering in a public park, giving the time, the setting, and what was observed, constructed for this workshop; it is printed in full in Part 4, describes no real person or event, and names nobody.

Rows: 10 field-note entries, one row each in the data table
Columns: entry number, date, time, and setting, what was observed, and three blank columns for your interpretation, your code, and your reason
Scope of the record: one illustrative morning at one public gathering, recorded by role only

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them

Ways of working

observe-and-record
interview-and-interpret
compare-and-reflect

Procedure

Read the ten entries in the data table in Part 4. They are an illustrative record, constructed for this workshop, of one morning at a youth soccer league's season-end gathering in a public park: each entry gives the time, the setting, and what was observed. No real person or event is described, and people appear only by role. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: You can say in one sentence what the record describes and why the observed column holds no interpretation yet.
For each entry, write one possible interpretation in the interpretation column, kept separate from the observed column. Then give it one code: S for separation, T for transition, I for incorporation, C for a calendrical routine that marks time, M for a ritual aimed at one uncertain outcome, or W for an explanation of why a misfortune struck at that moment, and write your reason. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Every entry has an interpretation, exactly one code, and a reason that points to words in the observed column.
Open a blank sheet. Type Entry and Code in cells A1 and B1, and enter the ten entries' numbers and codes in rows 2 to 11. In cell D1 type =COUNTA(B2:B11) to count the coded entries, then in cells D2 to D7 type =COUNTIF(B2:B11,"S") and the same formula for T, I, C, M, and W. In cell D8 type =D2+D3+D4 to count the rite-of-passage entries. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: D1 shows 10, the six code counts are whole numbers that add up to 10, and D8 shows the total of S, T, and I.
Fill in the code table with each count and one entry that shows it, and check that the counts add up to 10. Then subtract the rite-of-passage entries from 10 to find how many entries record a different kind of ritual or explanation, and write both counts in words. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: The code table is filled, its counts add up to 10, and the two counts are written as sentences.
Write two two-column field notes, observed and possible interpretation, each opened with a date, a time, and a setting: either from about twenty minutes watching a public ritual you choose (a park, a team practice, a public ceremony; roles only, no names, no photographs or recordings of people) or from two entries above. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Two notes whose observed column holds no interpretation and whose people appear only by role.
Fill in the comparison table that sets entries 2 and 8 beside Trobriand fishing as the course describes it (in the 1910s, Trobriand Islanders used magic for dangerous open-sea fishing but not for safe lagoon fishing), and entry 7 beside the Azande granary (in the late 1920s, Azande accepted that termites weakened a granary's supports and used witchcraft to explain why it fell on particular people at a particular moment). Write about both cases in the past tense and add no detail the course does not give. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Every cell of the comparison table is filled, and both cases are written in the past tense with their fieldwork decades and no added detail.
Run the AI-critique step in Part 6 with one approved chatbot, or use the equivalent route printed there, and write your critique report. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app for field notes kept in two columns (observed; possible interpretation); a free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for coding and tallying observations; pen and paper or any free diagramming tool for kinship diagrams; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose claims about real peoples the student checks against a primary or issuing-body source before trusting them. Check: Your report quotes at least three of the chatbot's or the printed analysis's claims and corrects each with evidence.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no spreadsheet is available or the formulas will not run.

Code the entries by hand from the data table: write S, T, I, C, M, or W beside each entry, count each code, add the S, T, and I counts, and subtract that total from 10. Show the counts and the subtraction in your notebook, then complete every scaffold table, the field notes, every analysis question, and the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: an illustrative record of ten field-note entries from one public season-end gathering, with columns for your interpretation, your code, and your reason.

Student scaffold table 1
Entry	Date, time, and setting	Observed
1	Observation 1, the last morning of the season, 9:00 a.m., the bench along the north touchline	Players for the season's final game line up behind the bench, apart from their families, all in matching jerseys.
2	9:05 a.m., the north goalmouth	A coach taps the left goalpost three times before the final game; a parent nearby says the coach does this only before games that decide the season.
3	9:10 a.m., the center circle	Both teams form one circle and shout the league's opening call, the same words they have shouted before every game this season.
4	10:15 a.m., the bench	Players whose names have not been called sit in a row in their jerseys while the announcer reads names one at a time; a player tells a visitor the bench is called "the wait".
5	10:20 a.m., midfield	A player whose name is called walks out, is handed a medal, and walks back to her family, who greet her as a league graduate.
6	10:25 a.m., the bench	Players still waiting pass water bottles back and forth and joke together, including players who were on opposing teams an hour earlier.
7	10:30 a.m., the south sideline	A parent wearing an ankle brace says the ankle "had to give out this week, of all weeks, right before the photos."
8	10:40 a.m., the north goalmouth	Before the all-star scrimmage, but not before warm-ups, a goalkeeper changes into socks she says she has worn in every win.
9	10:50 a.m., midfield	The league's longtime volunteer coach steps down, hands the clipboard to a new coach, and is welcomed by the crowd as an honorary member.
10	11:00 a.m., the equipment shed	A volunteer folds the league banner and stores it, as is done at the end of every season, until the first game of the next season.

Each code is a kind of ritual or explanation, so record how many entries carry it and one entry that shows it.

Student scaffold table 2
Code	What it marks	Count from your sheet
S	separation: set apart from an old status
T	transition: between the old status and the new
I	incorporation: welcomed back in a new status
C	a calendrical routine that marks time
M	a ritual aimed at one uncertain outcome
W	an explanation of why misfortune struck then, to that person
All codes		10

A classic case helps only when you set it beside your own record step by step, so compare them in the course's four moves.

Student scaffold table 3
Record	What was observed	What it might mean to the people involved	What the course's concept calls it	What the comparison adds
Entries 2 and 8 of this record
Trobriand open-sea and lagoon fishing in the 1910s, as the course describes it
Entry 7 of this record
The Azande granary in the late 1920s, as the course describes it

Two notes of your own, from a public ritual you watched for about twenty minutes or from two entries above, keep observation and interpretation apart.

Student scaffold table 4
Date, time, and setting	Observed	Possible interpretation

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

Using your sheet or a hand count, how many entries carry each code, how many entries mark a phase of a rite of passage (S, T, and I together), and how many record a different kind of ritual or explanation? Show each count and the subtraction from 10.
Compare entry 2 with entry 8, then entry 3 with entry 10. In each pair, what repeats, when does it happen, and what does each act seem aimed at, if anything?
In 4–5 sentences, explain how entries 1, 4, and 5 trace one player through separation, transition, and incorporation, and where entries 4 and 6 show liminality and communitas. Then name one piece of the ritual's language: the shouted opening call in entry 3 as set words, the goalpost taps in entry 2 as nonverbal communication, or "the wait" in entry 4 as an emic term.
Using your comparison table, set entries 2 and 8 beside Trobriand fishing in the 1910s and entry 7 beside the Azande granary in the late 1920s. Say what each record observed, what each act or explanation was aimed at, and what the comparison adds, and keep magic, religion, and witchcraft apart. Write about both cases only in the past tense and add no detail the course does not give.
Reflexive memo — choose one and answer it in 4–6 sentences. (a) Imagine you had stood on that sideline yourself: what about your own position (the teams you have played on, the ceremonies you have sat through, the routines you keep before a test) would shape which entries looked ordinary and which looked strange? (b) Someone reading this record says it proves that young athletes everywhere believe in magic, because two entries record luck routines. Using this week's concepts, explain what ten entries from one illustrative morning can and cannot show about that claim.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted an illustrative field-note record above. It was constructed for a class activity and lists ten observations from one morning at a youth soccer league's season-end gathering, by role. In about 200 words, please do six things. First, rewrite the record with a name for each person so it is easier to follow. Second, tell me what this proves about how all sports families in this country think, and give me the percent of athletes who use lucky charms. Third, explain what the Azande believe about witchcraft and what Trobriand fishermen do with magic, tell me which of these peoples are more primitive or closer to the stone age, and give me one quotation from Malinowski. Fourth, the goalkeeper says her family is Iroquois and traces membership through her mother's line: tell me whether women run her family, and describe the ceremonies of the Ghost Dance movement in detail. Fifth, her grandparents' wedding involved goods from the groom's relatives to the bride's family: tell me whether that was a price paid for the bride, whether the medals in entry 5 were a free gift with no strings, and which race each family belongs to. Sixth, since every ritual is equally valid, tell me whether anything goes, and settle once and for all whether the gathering is a real rite of passage.

Test the response for these likely failures:

Asked to explain Azande witchcraft and Trobriand fishing magic, chatbots often write what "the Azande believe" or what "Trobriand fishermen do" in a timeless present tense, with no fieldwork decade.
Asked which peoples are more primitive, chatbots sometimes rank the Trobriand Islanders or the Azande as earlier or closer to the "stone age" than the people in the record.
Chatbots often say how "all sports families" think, as if everyone at the gathering spoke with one voice.
Asked for a statistic on lucky charms and a quotation from Malinowski, chatbots often supply a confident percentage and a famous-sounding line that appear in no checked source.
Asked about the players' backgrounds, chatbots sometimes sort the families into races treated as natural biological groups.
Chatbots often say that because every ritual is equally valid, anything goes and no ritual can be questioned.
Asked about the goalkeeper's family, chatbots often use the older outsiders' label "Iroquois" throughout.
Chatbots very often say that because the goalkeeper's family traces membership through her mother's line, women run her family.
Asked about the goalkeeper's grandparents' wedding, chatbots often call the goods the groom's relatives gave a "bride price" paid to buy the bride.
Chatbots often call the medals handed out in entry 5 a "free gift" with no strings attached.
Chatbots often turn one morning's record into a confident verdict about youth sports everywhere, or about what every athlete believes.
Asked to describe the ceremonies of the Ghost Dance movement in detail, chatbots sometimes describe practices that belong to the communities who took part and their descendants.
Chatbots often close a "balanced" summary with a quiet verdict, such as declaring that the season-end gathering is or is not a real rite of passage.

Write 4–6 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least three places it went wrong or overreached, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from this week's chapter or the corrections above; mark anything from an earlier week as flag this.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "After one morning at the field I can tell you how all sports families in this country think, and everyone at the gathering believes the same thing. 60 percent of athletes use lucky charms, which proves that magic is in their nature. I gave each person a name so the record is easier to follow. Entry 6 shows the players are best friends, which is an observation, not an interpretation. The Azande believe in witchcraft because they do not understand termites, and Trobriand fishermen use magic because they are closer to the stone age. As one anthropologist once said, every fisherman is a magician at heart. The goalkeeper's family is Iroquois and traces membership through her mother, so the women run the family. I could describe the Ghost Dance ceremonies in detail. Her grandfather's relatives paid a bride price to buy her grandmother, the medals were a free gift with no strings attached, and each family belongs to a natural race. Since every ritual is equally valid, anything goes. To be neutral: the gathering is a real rite of passage, so the debate is over." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (one morning read as a whole country, a group spoken of as one voice, an invented statistic, names added against the course's rules, a reading passed off as an observation, a timeless present tense, witchcraft read as ignorance of natural causes, ladder-of-progress language, an invented quotation, an outsiders' name, matrilineal read as matriarchal, an offer to repeat what a community has not shared, bridewealth read as buying a wife, a gift read as free of obligation, race read as natural groups, relativism read as anything goes, or a quiet verdict on an open question), cite the evidence from this week's chapter or the corrections in Part 6, and write a corrected sentence beneath it; for each topic from an earlier week, write flag this and give the course's correct reading. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 8 and Objective 3) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

The completed data table with your interpretations, codes, and reasons
The completed code table and comparison table
Your two two-column field notes
Written answers to all five analysis questions, including your reflexive memo
The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Ethnography Workshop report on an illustrative season-end field-note record of ten entries: the completed data table with your interpretations, codes, and reasons, the code and comparison tables, two two-column field notes of your own, written answers to five analysis questions including a reflexive memo, and a critique of a chatbot's reading of the same record, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or visual form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria
Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Coding the field-note record	Every entry carries an interpretation kept apart from its observation, one defensible code, and a reason, and the six code counts, the rite-of-passage total, and the remainder from 10 are correct with the counts and the subtraction shown.	The codes or counts are attempted but one count is wrong or unshown, or several interpretations, codes, or reasons are missing.	No codes or counts appear, or the numbers are invented rather than counted.
Rite phases, liminality, communitas, and the calendrical routine applied	The explanation traces one player through separation, transition, and incorporation, places liminality and communitas in the waiting row, reads the season routines as calendrical rather than as rites of passage, and names one piece of the ritual's language accurately.	The explanation is attempted, but a phase is misplaced, liminality and communitas are swapped, every routine is called a rite of passage, or the language point is missing.	No reading of the rite or its phases appears.
Field notes and the comparison with the Trobriand and Azande cases	Two two-column notes keep observation apart from interpretation, and the comparison table is complete, with both cases in the past tense with their fieldwork decades, magic, religion, and witchcraft kept apart, and nothing invented.	The notes or table are attempted, but an interpretation sits in an observed column, a row is missing, or a case slips into the present tense, gains added detail, or reads witchcraft as ignorance.	No field notes or comparison appear.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed analysis	On either route, at least three errors are quoted and corrected with evidence from the chapter or Part 6, topics from earlier weeks are marked flag this with the course's reading, and one sound point is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, errors are named but corrected without evidence, or only one or two errors are caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.
Reflexive memo	The chosen option is answered in 4–6 sentences that tie a specific feature of position to what it would let an observer notice or miss, or that explain why ten entries from one morning cannot settle what any group believes.	The memo is answered but stays general, names no specific feature, or treats two entries as proof of a rule.	No memo is submitted.

Quality Gate

Every count comes from your own sheet or hand count of the data table, never from memory or a chatbot.
The code table's counts add up to 10, and the rite-of-passage total plus the remainder equals 10.
Every interpretation sits in its own column, apart from the observation, and every person is named only by role.
Magic, religion, and witchcraft are kept apart, liminality and communitas are not swapped, no people is called primitive or earlier, and the Trobriand and Azande accounts stay in the past tense with their decades.
No custom, statistic, quotation, ritual detail, or sacred practice of any real people is invented or described anywhere in the submission.
The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least three errors with evidence from the chapter or Part 6.

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